Saturday, June 11, 2011

SOCIAL NETWORKING

June Shaw

At some time in the past, I’m sure what writers did was write.

How different the writing life is today.

I needed a Web site, so I found a super smart young lady who creates such things. I have been highly satisfied—except when some things need to be changed—like right now. I love the site she created. The only challenge is me: I sold another book—Yay—so now I need to ask this brilliant young woman to make lots of changes, which in the long run will be great. I just need to locate all of the areas and tell her what I’d like altered.

Get a My Space page, I was told early on after I sold my first mystery. I knew so little about this and figured it out enough to create a My Space page (I think), but now My Space has been replaced by something else.

We need to do Facebook and Twitter, sending Tweets and messages and, I believe, pictures. I gathered lots of Facebook friends even if my daughter who doesn’t do this said, “Oh, Mom, how sad. At your age, you need to beg people to be your friends.”

I agree. But so many individuals said, Yes! They would friend me—How cool is that?Then I began to belive I had it licked, and along came the Tweets. I needed to search for even more friends, giving them little symbols along the way. Yet I am a writer, not a math person, and the purpose of all of those symbols and such gets confusing.

Maybe, though, things will change. Maybe if I stay at a standstill with friends and Tweets and such the whole social media thing will boomerang back to being as it was. I am a writer. You are a writer. Let’s spend our energies creating books. And maybe one reader will tell another and yet another how much they like our books. And our publishers will publish and promote our books.

A girl can wish, can’t she?

(In the meantime, please be my Friend at Facebook and Twitter. And check out my Web site at www.juneshaw.com. Thanks.)

26 comments:

June, after finally locating my Google account password, I shall try to comment. Thank you for putting into words the frustration I often feel about social networking. Now it's back to work-in-progress.

I spend entirely too much time networking instead of writing, but I keep getting invitations to join this forum or that one. I usually deline, but the digests continue to appear on my screen. I've picked up some real nuggets of info on book promotions so I continue to skim most of them. I currently have four Facebook sites and a Twitter, but forgot about My Space. The purpose is to place our names before the (worldwide) public, so we continue to network and blog instead of working on our WIPs.

I had to laugh while I read this, through tears of frustration. Facebook confounds me completely. I post but never know if it goes out to any one. I have yet to twit--tweet. Just can't bring myself. I get way too many emails, and I'm sure I'm missing lots of good information just becuse I can't read them all. I have a web site, I blog, should do more, would like to read more of them, would like to read more. But what I'd really like to do is write more. Somehow, we've let all this networking take over. Good or bad, I don't know, but life has changed. Kathleen DelaneyMurder Half-Baked

I hear you, sister! This social networking thing is a lot of hard work. I'd rather be writing. I need to find a balance, but lately it's all I can do to blog, tweet, and comment on a regular basis just to make virtual friends. Oh well, it's more fun than I thought it would be and I'm finally getting the hang of it. At least until I blink and something else changes.

I'm with Kathleen, the writing life has changed, not particularly for the better, from this writer's perspective. I get so many emails already I have to delete at least half of them. I have yet to figure out Twitter but I'm going to give it another shot, maybe today. Just normal promotion seems to take up so much time out of a writer's day, if she's trying to write, and when does a writer get to actually live a normal life, like taking time out to go to the store, or vacuum the floor, or...or......? Facebook is fun sometimes, but how do you know if anyone actually sees what you post unless you stay there or go back to check out what you said three hours ago to see if anyone responds? Lots of people, myself often included, just read, click like, and move on. And then adding Kindle lists to all that and you find yourself drowning in even more emails. I have an active blog and I know thousands of people read that every month because I can at least check the stats. Do they buy the books? If they did I'd have over 9,000 books sold every month, and I don't see that happening.

This is an ongoing struggle for me, too. I set aside time to write but the need to promote and be on multiple platforms is exhausting! I try to leave the networking until later in the day. Often it just doesn't get done. If I do it in the morning, then I get off schedule on my writing. Such a trade-off!

Yes, we are all stuck on Networks thinking that some how they promote our writing and may help us make a few sales. Unfortunately, for the mass majority of us, it is just blabbing with fellow authors about our cats.I enjoy 'making' and looking for friends, but of the 300 or so I have, only about 20 ever post. And again, it is a promo about their book, which I already know about, or about their animals. Oh yeah, or their sales figures.Patg

I think this whole issue of trying to balance time between the social networking and writing is a challenge for all of us. I have picked up some tips from Elizabeth Craig and Helen Ginger on scheduling short periods of checking in with Twitter and Facebook throughout the day. One of them suggested taking ten minutes out of every hour to do some networking, then get back to the work in progress. Sounds good, but I always find there is something I need to follow up on right away or I know I will forget when the next ten minute break comes. LOL

Hi June, thanks for hitting the nail with ... no, not your veal-cutlet pounder, your ball-peen hammer! I get on Facebook, start reading postings from friends, commenting, and eek! An hour has gone by. And we writers can't afford to diddle away an hour's time like that. Sorry ... gotta go!

You really touched a nerve with this one, June. I like Facebook (and Crimespace, though it's not as active as I'd like), but Twitter leaves me befuddled. It's like hearing snatches of conversation in a crowded room. I'm trying, but so far the Joy of Tweeting eludes me.